Marketers often strive to build a simple message that appears consistent wherever potential customers may find it. This quest is likely what Marketo has in mind for its Social Marketing tool that's meant to integrate messaging across multiple channels.

What is Social Marketing?

Social marketing or social media marketing, is about reaching out to customers over some of the newest apps currently proliferating in the online world. People flock to networks like Instagram, Path, Foursquare and Pinterest because their friends are there, or there is a central theme around which like minded folks can gather.

Social networks are powerful peer influencers. Businesses are not nearly as trusted as people's friends.

The problem is, these aren't necessarily open systems, and people can get stuck in those networks. This siloing effect is widely known among marketers, and Marketo has released its Social Marketing tool to attempt to unify social networks with broader email and Web marketing campaigns.

The key for those in the marketing automation space has been to allow for just this kind of integration. The level of integration and the degree to which it can be made seamless will separate the industry leaders. Marketo is already a marketing automation powerhouse, so its latest release will no doubt gain interest.

Use Peer to Peer Amplification to Gain Influence

One of the drivers of social media marketing is to gain influence over those who are themselves very influential. The idea being these people will then evangelize on behalf of whatever message needs to be sent. Once the most influential people on a channel such as Twitter have taken to a particular idea, the message will spread more or less organically.

Marketo calls this peer to peer amplification, and it is a key component to its Social Marketing tool. Marketo Social Marketing uses things like polls, video sharing and sweepstakes to build engagement on social networks. It also features a drag and drop interface for adding social apps to a demand generation program.

What really makes the integration of email, Web and social campaigns possible is a unified customer database that allows Marketo customers to track individual activity to build a singular voice across those channels. Of course, Marketo Social Marketing also includes analytics and integration with its other marketing automation products.

Imagine a person responding to a poll or entering a sweepstakes on Facebook, for example. That person could be sent a personalized email based on that information, and a conversation could be started with a potential customer. Marketo Social Marketing is available now, but pricing information is only given upon request.

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